curious_aardvark:

Sure you can - all the control softwares have stop print buttons, there's even a thread somewhere warning about the emergency stop button on repetier host and how to avoid pressing it midprint.

Cura has a pause button, not looked at any others. But they'd all have a pause or stop button.
Cura even ha s apause at a specific layer height to allow for changing filaments.

I know I 'can' stop a print, I just meant I didn't want to.
It would have felt wasteful for it to print for 2 hours only to cancel it

On another note, I just successfully used Repetier Host's pause function to successfully change filament mid print
Kinda expected something to go wrong with it, but it works just fine ^_^

It's taken most of the day to print all the parts for it, but I've just finished an Iron Man 'arc reactor'



Pretty much everything I've printed so far has been in this blue colour 'cos it's given me the best results so far. None of the filament I bought from Makible themselves has done very good. Luckily I have another half a KG remaining, plus a second full 1KG roll. I got them to print my TARDIS Transformer design

A good sign is that over the past week, I've now got to the point where I'm comfortable enough with how Susan works that I can start a print & not even worry about it. I even set her to do something & went for a walk off to the shops.

GONE ARE THE DAYS OF WATCHING EVERY SINGLE MOVEMENT FOR FAILURE!

1. I've ordered some red & gold PLA.
It's coming from the same place as the 'Tardis' blue filament I've found success with so far.
It should be arriving tomorrow.

2. I now have the metal bracket for the Z-Wobble issue.
I want to print a new plastic part to go with it, one that matches the thickness better.
Having to take the print bed off the axis to fit the new part is something I don't fancy doing more than once.

3. I'm getting filament jams.
I don't believe these are caused by the hot end or the filament.
I'm convinced it's from the e-step motor getting too hot.
Any time it's jammed, I've felt that motor & it's been painful to touch.
It's not normally like that.
When I get the filament out, it's obvious the plastic melted slightly & not from grinding.
Perhaps it's due to spending too much time inside the FroZen drive on it's way through.
Ultimately I'm trying to avoid prints longer than one & a half hours.
I turn her off between prints sometimes, to cool down.
I've also turned down the current limit to 1000 mA from 1600.
I don't want to turn it down much further, I don't know enough about electronics.

4. I'm making slow but steady progress on my test IronMan hand
9 out of 14 segments done (3 & a bit fingers).

Cool to hear you succeeded in fine-tuning your printer to perfection, congrats!
And those are some neat iron man prints, whatcha planning?

What am I planning?
The whole thing.

I want to make an entire Iron Man MK42 suit out of mostly 3D printed parts.
Starting with a hand, then moving onto modelling & printing this:

like the fingers - how do you plan to do the body armour - some of those panels must be way way bigger than a makibox can handle.

I would ask why you're doing this - but the answer would probably be: to look like iron man :-)
I'm guessing that might get you laid at a comic/fan convention

OH yeah - where are you buying the filament ? Always useful to know alternative suppliers

And do you havea fan on that motor that's over heating ? if not - why not ?

For the larger body panels, I plan on printing a small corner section, or the outside of it, then filling the larger panels with a piece of foam or cardboard. something like that.

I'm doing this simply because I like the suits & i want to make one more realistic than your average costume.

I got the blue filament (and about half an hour ago got some red & gold) from ebay.
This is my supplier: stores.ebay.co.uk/Galactic-Warehouse
As I've said before, the stuff I got from Makible was crap, but I've had great results with what I've had from Galactic Warehouse.

I currently don't have a fan on the overheating motor, mainly because I don't have one spare
I really should get one.

CrisRowlands:

What am I planning?
The whole thing.

Hehe okay, cool, keep us posted

Finished all finger segments

Nice
Whats next? helmet? other hand? chestplates?

These blue parts are just for a 'test' hand.
I'm currently slicing parts for the hand itself & attaching the fingers with bits of elastic so they stay together properly.

Once they're done, I plan on printing both hands (two of each finger segment at a time) in the correct colours.
Then it will be onto the arms.

I'm not sure how it will really work out as 1) I don't have files for the rest of the suit & 2) the MakiBox only has a tiny build area :/

I now have a standard house fan pointed at the back of my MakiBox.
So far it seems to have helped keep the e-step motor cooler than usual.
Been printing almost non-stop since I got back from work 4 hours ago & she's still working fine

Just thought I'd share this print with you

sweet, so glad you are getting joy out of your machine finally!